Gathering Dust
by hikomokushi
Summary: Recognition was unneeded. Sometimes the process of writing was merely enough. Seeing it, feeling it, breathing it. Sometimes all it needed to do was sit on a shelf and gather dust. Oneshot/Drabble Collection. KakaSaku, Het Pairings, Genfic.
1. Regrettably Yours: ShikaIno

**Title:** Regrettably Yours  
**Fandom/Community:** Naruto/**naruto-contest  
Characters:** Ino, Shikamaru  
**Pairing:** onesided ShikaIno  
**Rating:** PG  
**Disclaimer:** Kishimoto-sensei owns Naruto  
**Week 1:** Control  
**Word Count:** 293

**Author Notes:** These will be various drabbles, including anyone within Naruto, as well as any pairing, genre, or rating.

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She had been so sure that things would work out. She'd never given it a second thought.

But it was in the moments when she'd watched as Naruto began returning those looks Hinata had always sent his way. It was when she'd first noticed that when Neji walked alongside Tenten their hands were entwined. When Sakura had suddenly been the one walking around with a hand that shimmered in the sunlight.

She was too busy watching the lives of everyone else come together that she didn't notice when her own fell apart.

She corners him on his way out. "A goddamn good-bye letter? Is that all I'm worth?"

He doesn't even glance at her. "I didn't want to make a big deal. It's not a big deal."

"I thought you said you'd always be there for me?"

Shikamaru stops walking, glances over his shoulder and shrugs; the same bored, untroubled look on his face. "I _was_ always there for you, Ino," he says in all seriousness, and for once, he doesn't comfort her when the tears come. "You were too busy to notice."

"This wasn't the way that things were supposed to work out!" Her throat hurts but she can't stop screaming. "You were supposed to be mine, damn it!"

"I'm sorry, Ino."

He doesn't mean it, she can tell. Years of her screaming at him, threatening him, ordering him around have hardened his heart to her and she can see it on his face. "You're not." She says and means it. She wants to cry, but laughs instead. "I can see it on your face."

He shrugs and starts walking again. Walking out of her life. "There are some things you just can't control."

She'd always been too damn sure of herself.


	2. Conversations with Dead People: KakaSaku

**Title:** Conversations with Dead People  
**Characters:** Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, (Orochimaru)  
**Pairing:** slight SasuSaku, hints of KakaSaku  
**Rating:** PG-13,  
**Week 2:** Weak  
**Word Count:** 800

**Author Notes:** I don't think people understood the idea of the summary. It says KakaSaku, **Het Pairings**,**Genfic**. This means it's a mix of lots of drabbles and small one-shots that can vary in pairing and theme and rating. To answer your questions, I put it under KakaSaku, because _most_ of it will end up being KakaSaku. Just be patient. Notice that this one has KakaSaku in it. I did modify the chapter titles so that they will say what pairing/character they follow most.

Also, people, unless I'm seriously attached to a certain piece, it's not likely that I will continue it.

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Kakashi doesn't want to let her into the room, but he does anyway.

There's something about the look on her face that allows him to understand she needs to see for herself. She's not a child anymore, and he—above all people—should know it. Treating her as such would not only be hypocritical but a sin against everything he stands for. So Kakashi keeps his ears alert and his eyes open. Because even though he may be callous, he's not unfeeling, and he's never once abandoned a friend.

It's going on the second hour when the man—the beast—finally speaks, harsh and grating, a voice that isn't his own.

He says, "Come closer"; and she glances away, unwilling to look him in the eye. "I won't bite."

Don't get close, her mind reminds, and it's only because of the drool on his chin and the glaze to his eyes that she doesn't follow his request. There are some habits even she can't seem to break.

Those same habits have made her cautious. He's in no position to harm her, but she's not taking any chances. Just because they've caged him doesn't make him less dangerous. His bite is all he has left now. Back an animal into a corner and they'll eat their own in order to escape. He's done it once before and she won't deny he'd do it again.

Since when did she matter anyway?

That harsh, discordant laughter comes again.

He mutters under his breath as she tries to wipe the tears away.

She knows his incessant and indecipherable babblings are not real—at least, not real in the sense of sanity. He's long lost that part of humanity.

Glassy eyes stare at her hungrily and he wets his lips in a way that makes him seem more animal than human. Like a lion that licks his lips after his maw is spattered with the gore of his kill. He's not much different, she reflects, except that she reasons instead of fur he'd have scales. It would only make sense.

"Sakura."

He speaks through murmurs of the past and present, a future he wants—sees—but can never possess. Those moments of fleeting consciousness when he truly remember and sees and knows are her breaking point. Sasuke looks her in the face, his mind awake and his eyes clear for the first time in the three weeks.

He looks at her for the first time and when her eyes finally meet his, he whispers, "Kill me."

"I can't, Sasuke," she whispers back, wanting to get closer. But Kakashi is outside the room and she knows that if she sets one toe over the line, she's out of there faster than Sasuke's mind can deteriorate. "You're already dead."

He laughs then, again, the sound filling the cold concrete cell.

The white never suited him, but the straps certainly do.

Sasuke struggles against the bonds that hold him, his arms wrapped around himself—hugging himself. She faintly wonders if the man did that when he was younger and he slept alone. Maybe when he sat at his kitchen table and ate the dinner he'd made himself, or when he lay down to bed and read himself his own bedtime story.

"It's me. I'm me. Always have been. You're just too stupid to see it." His words break off, the inconsistencies working their way back into what little fragile psyche is left to him, and he shudders against his restraints. The coat hugs him as a mother should have hugged him, but Sasuke has only ever been hugging himself. "Too stupid, too ugly, too weak, too _annoying_."

Sakura grabs her head by her hair and shakes. _"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP."_

When Kakashi drags her out, she tries to remind herself that he's not himself. That he's not been himself since she was twelve, but he's been gone a lot longer than that.

Because he's not Sasuke-kun anymore.

His snake eyes haunt her every step, but she finds that the more time she spends with him, the less they seem to frighten. Her dreams have never been safe ones anyway.

She wants to break and wants to cry, but there are no tears to be shed for someone mourned before his time.

"Don't take what he says seriously, Sakura-chan," says Kakashi softly. But his hand is tight around her arm and she knows that he wants to get her away. Because no matter what, she'll always been that little girl standing behind him. That little girl he needed to protect and needed to keep safe. His back is all she'd ever seen. "He's not in his right mind."

She shakes her head and buries her face in his chest. "You're wrong. He knows _exactly_ what he's saying."


	3. It's Not A Tragedy: AsumaKurenai

**Title:** It's Not A Tragedy  
**Characters:** Kurenai, Other Unnamed People  
**Pairing:** Sarutobi Asuma x Yuuhi Kurenai  
**Rating:** G  
**Week 3:** Apology  
**Word Count:** 308

**Author Notes:** There is an infuriating, and seriously regrettable, lack of AsumaxKurenai fanfiction on the internet. I literally wrote this about fifteen minutes before I had to turn it in last week. I'm so proud of this—if only because it's something I haven't written yet and I just _slammed_ it out because I needed something. xD

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She didn't sleep that night though, but not because of him; for herself and her chilled bedside.

She did not cry when ninja and civilians the same sent her flowers and sympathy cards. She did not cry when her friends tried to comfort her. She did not cry when the young Nara boy handed her a bloodied trench knife and cried on her shoulder.

There was something about crying that made her feel weak. The tears she would shed would dry on her cheeks and the redness would fade from her eyes. The hurt in her heart would mend itself, eventually. (_She hoped. _) It all seemed so fake. So temporary.

They asked if she was angry, upset, tired, hurt. . .

She told them what they didn't want to hear, just to watch their reactions.

It was a travesty, an unfortunate incident. The cutting short of a life in its prime was a terrible circumstance. But they were ninja. What else was to be expected? A life, old and graying? The peaceable passing in a sleep that never ended?

It was calculated.

Sometimes, though, when she was given time to herself, she thinks about him,_them_. Sometimes she wonders why they never married—normally only after the pitying glances have gone on long enough, and she retires to her one-bedroom apartment. (_She'll need to buy a two in a few months. _)

_It's okay to be angry._

_It's okay to be hurt._

_It's okay to cry. _

It wasn't.

He was the job. They were all the job. The duty, the honor, the sacrifice.

No, she does not cry. She is not hurt or betrayed or angry. She does not question what they had, or what they might have had, or why.

His apology is in the child inside her and the love it took to create it.


End file.
